Hardware profiles

Hardware profiles are a convenient way of displaying CPU and RAM values that enable you to simplify the configuration of VMs for your users. They also enable you to control available hardware configurations and to recommend suitable hardware configurations for VM templates. And you can restrict users to a set of recommended configurations for a template. Abiquo has a default set of hardware profile families for public and private cloud. 

• In public cloud, you can synchronize the provider's profiles in the platform
• In private cloud and public clouds without native hardware profiles, you can create and fully manage hardware profiles and their types in the platform
• Some cloud providers may support both hardware profiles, and CPU and RAM, for example, vCloud Director

In private cloud, Abiquo supports dynamic hardware profiles for CPU and RAM, so the user can enter these values and the platform uses CPU and RAM prices for them. And the user can enter cores per socket.

In public cloud, you can onboard and synchronize price lists of hardware profiles and incorporate them into your pricing models. Note that the Azure API returns a value for cores per socket but the platform does not use this value.

To display hardware profiles, go to:

• Infrastructure → Public → select provider region → Hardware profiles
• Infrastructure → Private → select datacenter → Servers view → Hardware profiles

In public cloud providers with hardware profiles, when you create a public cloud region and add credentials for an enterprise, Abiquo will automatically retrieve the hardware profiles for the public cloud region.

• Provider hardware profiles are locked and you cannot edit them
• In public cloud regions with provider hardware profiles that also support CPU and RAM, you can deactivate hardware profiles mode
• The platform also registers if a hardware profile is Active and if it belongs to the Current generation

To synchronize hardware profiles: 

1. Go to Infrastructure → Public → select Public cloud region → Servers view → Hardware profiles
2. At the top right of the Hardware profiles pane, select an enterprise with a public cloud account
3. Click the round arrows refresh button

By default, for each enterprise with credentials, the hardware profiles mode is enabled. By default, all hardware profiles are available to all enterprises. 

To help users to easily select the right hardware profile for their VMs, providers usually classify hardware profiles by family and type.

The platform contains one set of default families that are available in both public and private cloud.

In private cloud and in public cloud regions without native hardware profiles, you can also create your own hardware profile families and types that will be available in all of these locations.

To classify hardware profiles, first create families, then create types.

To create a hardware profile family or type:

1. Go to Infrastructure → Private → select a datacenter → Hardware profiles 
   OR Go to Infrastructure → Public → select a region without native hardware profiles → Hardware profiles
2. At the bottom of the Types list, click the + Add button and select Family or Type
3. Complete the dialog as shown below and click Save

Create a hardware profile family

For more details see GUI Create hardware profile family

Create a hardware profile type

For more details see GUI Create hardware profile type

You can create Abiquo hardware profiles in private cloud datacenters and for public cloud providers that do not have provider hardware profiles, such as vCloud Director clouds.

To create a hardware profile:

1. Go to Infrastructure → Private or Public → select a location →  Hardware profiles
2. Click the + add button
3. Enter the details of the hardware profile
4. Click Save
   

For more details see GUI Create hardware profile

To set prices for hardware profiles using cost codes:

1. Create cost codes, see Pricing View#Manage cost codes
2. Set cost code prices, see  Pricing View#Create a new pricing model

3. When you create or edit a hardware profile, select a cost code

    Click here to expand...

   
   

   For dynamic hardware profiles, the platform will also use the prices for CPU and RAM.

To set prices in a pricing model for individual hardware profiles in each datacenter, see Pricing View#Create a new pricing model

To onboard and synchronize prices from public cloud, see Synchronize public cloud price lists 

The platform will automatically manage hardware profiles as follows:

• Provider hardware profiles
  
  • If you synchronize a public cloud region and a VM has a hardware profile that is not allowed for the enterprise, the platform will automatically allow the hardware profile
  • For AWS, Abiquo recommends hardware profiles based on information supplied by AWS and filters:

    • Virtualization type of Paravirtual or HVM

    • Root device type of Instance store or EBS

    • Architecture of I386, X86_64, or ARM64

  • If the provider does not support CPU and RAM as well as hardware profiles, and if there is no hardware profile that matches the CPU and RAM values, the platform cannot create a hardware profile, so the user will have to select another one

  • During onboarding, if there is a cost code assigned to the VM template, the platform will match the template cost code with a hardware profile cost code and assign the corresponding hardware profile
• Abiquo hardware profiles
  
  • If a tenant enterprise already has VMs deployed when you enable hardware profiles, the platform will try to assign existing hardware profiles. If the templates of the deployed VMs have cost codes, the platform will match the cost codes with the cost codes of hardware profiles and assign the corresponding hardware profiles. If an existing profile is inactive, the platform will activate this profile and assign it. Otherwise, the platform will create a new hardware profile named ABQ_HP_{cpu}_{ram}_ID.
  • If you capture a VM, the platform will behave as for VMs that were already deployed when you enabled hardware profiles. During capture, the template has no cost code, so the platform cannot match cost codes to assign a hardware profile 
• VApp specs
  • When you create a VApp spec, the platform records the CPU and RAM of each VM. It also records the name, family, dynamic CPU, and dynamic RAM properties of the hardware profile. When you create a virtual appliance from a spec, the hardware profiles used for the VMs created by the spec are found following these criteria:
  1. 1. An active hardware profile that matches CPU, RAM of the VM and all the other properties.
     2. Active hardware profiles with the same size or larger with the same family.
     3. Active hardware profiles with the same size or larger in all families.

• If more than one hardware profile is found, the hardware profiles will be ordered using the following properties:

  1. Dynamic CPU

  2. Dynamic RAM

  3. Current generation

  4. Cores per socket

• The platform will select a hardware property that:

  • Does not have dynamic CPU and/or dynamic RAM

  • Is of the current generation

  • Has the smallest cores per socket (if applicable). 

• The others will appear as warnings on the Warning tab of the Spec creation dialog. 

• If the CPU and RAM do not match exactly with the VM, there will also be a warning. 

• The selected hardware profile can be changed on the Virtual machines tab

In public cloud, providers may periodically release new generations of hardware profiles. A VM template may require a hardware profile of the current generation. When the platform synchronizes hardware profiles from providers, it registers if they are of the current generation. In private cloud, administrators can mark a hardware profile of the current generation. When users create or configure VMs, they can search for hardware profiles of the current generation.

For a tenant, to disable hardware profiles mode or to disable a specific hardware profile that is not in use in deployed VMs, see Manage Enterprises#Allowtenantstousehardwareprofiles. 

In a datacenter or a public cloud region with custom hardware profiles, you can deactivate a hardware profile at any time. The platform will not display inactive hardware profiles to select as recommended profiles in templates or for use in VMs. If a user already is already using a hardware profile on a VM when you deactivate it, they can continue to use it until they delete their VM. In this case, the administrator can save the enterprise’s allowed datacenter with the inactive hardware profile selected.

You can activate a hardware profile again at any time. Also, the platform will automatically activate an existing hardware profile in preference to creating a new one when switching to hardware profile mode, capturing a VM, or creating a virtual appliance from a spec.