Introduction to hardware profiles
Display hardware profiles
Manage hardware profiles with the API
Synchronize hardware profiles with a provider
Set prices for hardware profiles
Enable users to work with hardware profiles
Automatic management of hardware profiles
Prevent users from working with a hardware profile

Introduction to 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.

Display hardware profiles

To display hardware profiles, go to:

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

Manage hardware profiles with the API

API Documentation

For the Abiquo API documentation of this feature, see Abiquo API Resources and the page for this resource HardwareProfilesDatacenterResource.

Synchronize hardware profiles with a provider

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:

Privilege: Access infrastructure view and PCRs, View public cloud region details, Manage enterprises

Go to Infrastructure → Public → select Public cloud region → Servers view → Hardware profiles
At the top right of the Hardware profiles pane, select an enterprise with a public cloud account
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.

Classify hardware profiles in private cloud

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:

Go to Infrastructure → Private → select a datacenter → Hardware profiles
OR Go to Infrastructure → Public → select a region without native hardware profiles → Hardware profiles
At the bottom of the Types list, click the + Add button and select Family or Type
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

Create a hardware profile

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.

Privilege: Access infrastructure view and private DCs, View datacenter details, Manage datacenter infrastructure elements

To create a hardware profile:

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

Field

Value

Active

Select this checkbox to activate or deactivate the hardware profile

Troubleshooting

The platform will only display active hardware profiles to make available to an enterprise but inactive hardware profiles may be shown if they were previously selected when active.
The platform will only display active hardware profiles for selecting the recommended profiles for a template.
Users can only work with active hardware profiles.

For more details see GUI Create hardware profile

Set prices for hardware profiles

To set prices for hardware profiles using cost codes:

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

Enable users to work with hardware profiles

After you have prepared hardware profiles, do the following steps:

Enable hardware profiles for your tenants and select allowed hardware profiles. See Configure an Enterprise in a Cloud Location#Allowatenanttousehardwareprofiles.
By default, users can select from all custom hardware profiles for all templates. You can edit a VM template and
1. Recommend a set of hardware profiles OR
2. Enable a set of selected hardware profiles for each template.
See Modify a VM Template#ActivatehardwareprofilesforaVMtemplate

Automatic management of hardware profiles

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

Click here to show/hide the screenshots

Screenshot: Warning that the hardware profile does not exactly match

Screenshot: Warning that there are multiple hardware profiles available

Prevent users from working with a hardware profile

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.

You cannot delete a hardware profile if it is used in a deployed VM
If the administrator deletes a hardware profile, it will be automatically removed from all enterprises. This means that an undeployed VM could have no hardware profile and the user will need to select a new one before they deploy.

Related pages

Control access to hardware profiles at a tenant level: Configure an Enterprise in a Cloud Location#Allowatenanttousehardwareprofiles.
Configure hardware profiles for VM templates: See Modify a VM Template
Configure pricing for hardware profiles: Pricing View#Hardware profiles
Configure VMs using hardware profiles: VM general information