VM storage

In private cloud datacenters, VMs can have the following storage types, when supported in your environment:

• Volumes of managed storage

• Hard disks on the hypervisor datastore

• ISO hard disks on datastore DVD drives

To display VM storage, including the details of the primary disk and attached storage,

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → select VM
2. Go to the VM details panel → Storage

To display and configure VM storage:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → select the VM
2. To configure storage, if you are not using hot-reconfigure of disks, power off the VM
3. Edit the VM
4. Go to Storage

Storage volumes are persistent, which means they will still be available after you undeploy the VM. 

To attach storage volumes to a VM

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → select VM
2. If you are not using hot reconfigure, power off the VM
3. Edit the VM and go to Storage
4. The platform displays the list of Volumes available to you in the virtual datacenter.  To attach a volume to your VM, drag it from the Volumes pane to the main Storage pane. 
5. To save all your changes to the VM, click Save. If the VM is deployed, it will be automatically reconfigured.

In private cloud datacenters, you can create secondary hard disks that are not persistent. This means that when you undeploy the VM or remove the hard disk the platform will delete your hard disks and destroy all data on them.

• Administrators can control the display of the Hard Disk Tab in Configuration View#General tab
• The administrator can force the use of the same controller type and controller as for the primary template disk using the appropriate Abiquo Configuration property.

To save data before you undeploy, create a backup, or create an Abiquo instance template, or copy data to a persistent volume. See Manage VMs#SaveVMdiskstocreateaninstancetemplate and Manage Persistent Storage and VMs

To add a VM hard disk:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit VM → Storage

2. Click the add button at the top right of the tab

3. Select Assign virtual disk and complete the dialog

4. Click Save to create the disk, then finish editing the VM, then click Save

For more details see GUI Edit virtual machine Storage Assign virtual disk

When you configure a VM, you can select an ISO disk from the catalogue to install software on your VM.

To add an ISO disk from the Apps library catalogue:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit a VM → Storage
2. Click the + add button
3. Choose Select an ISO disk
4. From the Apps library browser window that opens, select an ISO disk 
5. Click Save

Abiquo will create a DVD hard disk on the hypervisor datastore to contain the ISO disk. You cannot resize an ISO hard disk.

When you detach a volume, it will be available in the virtual datacenter again. For ESXi, you can only detach an iSCSI external storage volume if the VM does not have VMware snapshots. If you cannot detach a volume as expected, please contact your System Administrator.

When you detach a hard disk, the platform will destroy it and all data on it.

To delete a hard disk or to detach a volume of virtual storage:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit VM → Storage

2. Select the hard disk or volume

3. Click the detach/delete button at the top right of the Storage tab

4. Confirm the delete or detach operation

5. Click Cancel to discard changes or Save to reconfigure the VM in the hypervisor

A volume that has been detached will now be available again in the virtual datacenter.

Abiquo recommends that you change the boot order by itself, without making any other disk configuration changes at the same time. Disk hot-reconfigure on ESXi only supports changes to the boot order as part of disk add or disk remove operations. Other changes made in the platform will not be implemented until the VM is powered off and reconfigured. Note that the platform will ignore Cloud-init ISO disks in the boot order.

To change the boot order:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit VM → Storage
2. Click the pencil edit button beside the Boot order number
3. Enter the new number in the Boot order where you want the disk to go and click ok.
4. Repeat for other disks, as required 
5. The platform will ensure that each disk has a unique number in the boot order and the boot order is contiguous (without gaps between disk numbers).
6. Click Save to reconfigure the VM with the new order

 The platform will change the boot order.

After you add a volume of external storage to a VM, save the VM before you modify the volume.

To modify a VM volume:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit VM → Storage
2. Select the attached volume and click the pencil edit button
3. Modify the controller type and controller as required
   
   Edit a VM volume in private cloud
   
   
   Edit a VM volume in Azure
   
   
   For more details see GUI Edit volume VM

To make other changes to a volume (e.g. resize), go to the Virtual datacenters view on the Volumes tab. See Manage Persistent Storage and VMs#Managepersistentvolumes

You can edit hard disks, for example, to change the name and resize them, including in an existing deployed VM on demand.

To edit a hard disk

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit virtual machine → Storage
2. Select the hard disk and click the pencil edit button
   
   Edit a virtual disk in private cloud
   
   
   Edit the system disk in AWS
   
   
   For more details see GUI Edit virtual disk
   
   
3. Click Save on the Edit virtual disk size popup

4. Continue editing the VM or click Save to reconfigure the VM