This tutorial describes how to create a cloud and deploy a VM using the Abiquo UI.
In this tutorial you will perform the tasks of the cloud administrator, enterprise administrator and enterprise user.

Please see the Abiquo walkthrough for further general introductory information.

This tutorial assumes that the Abiquo platform and a cloud node hypervisor have been set up.
For detailed information, see Installation instructions in the Abiquo infrastructure guide.

Log in

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

Username: admin
Password: xabiquo

If required, contact Abiquo to obtain your trial license

Create the infrastructure

The cloud administrator creates the cloud infrastructure for the enterprise administrators and users.

Create a datacenter

Go to Infrastructure → Private
At the bottom of the Datacenters list, click the + add button
Enter the Name of your Datacenter and its Location in Google Maps format, then click Next.
Enter the details of the remote services. Abiquo uses Remote Services to connect to the providers and manage the cloud.
In the first Remote services IP address field, enter the IP or domain name of the server running the Remote Services.
- If the Remote Services are all running on the same server, click the link to Duplicate IP Addresses
Click Check all to confirm that Abiquo can access the remote services.
Select Automatically open datacenter after creation
Click Save

Help Button

Click the help button in the top left-hand side of a pop-up to view the help screen for that pop-up.

Add a rack

An Abiquo rack is a logical entity that can mirror a physical rack with a top of the rack switch. Configure Abiquo racks to match the VLAN configuration of your switch.

To create a rack:

Go to Infrastructure → Private → select the datacenter → Servers
At the bottom of the Physical servers list, click the + add button and select Rack
Enter the Name and click Save.

Add a cloud node

A cloud node is the physical machine and hypervisor host. To create a new physical machine:

Select your rack and click the + add button and select Physical machine
Select the Hypervisor type and enter the IP address or FQDN, and any other connection details as required
Click Accept. If you are working with a hypervisor manager, such as vCenter, select the physical machine and click Edit
On the General information tab, enter the Name of the physical machine
Go to Network and set the virtual switch interface for your machine to Service Network.
Go to Datastores and select the datastore and mark the checkbox to enable it
- Note: On KVM in this simple test example, you can use the / directory, but Abiquo recommends that you create a separate partition for the KVM datastore
Return to General Information and click Check to confirm that the physical machine State is Managed
Click Accept

The platform will add the physical machine to the rack and display it in the tree view of the Servers tab

Add VM templates to the catalogue

The catalogue stores VM templates so that users can easily create VMs from them. VM templates can be downloaded from a remote repository or uploaded from a local machine. The templates in the catalogue are available to the virtual datacenters.

Go to Catalogue → Virtual machine templates
Select the datacenter
To load existing templates, beside the datacenter name, click the Refresh button
In the Virtual machine templates pane, click the + add button and select the Create from remote template repository option
- The Abiquo sample Remote template repository is included in the default configuration. URL: http://abiquo-repository.abiquo.com/s3direct
Select the Remote repository to display a list of the available templates.
Select one or more templates
Click Download

You can download any VM template and a background V2V process will convert it to all formats for deployment in any cloud node hypervisor.

The platform will display the templates you downloaded in the catalogue.

Create an enterprise

In Abiquo, cloud tenants are called Enterprises.

Go to Users
At the bottom of the Enterprises list, click the + add button
Enter the Name of the tenant
To allow your users to deploy, enable a datacenter for the enterprise. Go to Datacenters → drag datacenters into the Allowed datacenters list
Click Save
Go to Users → Users click the + add button to add a user, and enter the details for a cloud administrator. Then create an enterprise administrator and a user.

Create a virtual datacenter

Virtual datacenters organize the infrastructure for providing the cloud service. From here users can create VMs in virtual appliances and the Abiquo platform will deploy them to the infrastructure.

Go to Virtual datacenters by clicking the cloud icon
At the bottom of the V. datacenters list, click the + add button and select Create virtual datacenter
Enter a Name, and select the Datacenter and if necessary a Hypervisor type

Create and deploy a virtual appliance

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, and so on.

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

Select a virtual datacenter
Go to Virtual Appliances
Click the + add button and enter the Name of the virtual appliance, then click Save

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

Add VM templates to create VMs

To open your virtual appliance, click Open
Click Create VM
Select a template from the list of available and compatible templates.
For the Name enter a user-friendly name for your VM
- This name may change when you deploy the VM if the hypervisor does not support duplicate VM names
Click Save

Deploy the virtual appliance

Click the Deploy button to deploy the virtual appliance.

The platform will deploy all the VMs and power them on.

You can select deployed VMs and manage them with the control buttons in the lower right corner of the screen.

Related pages:

Manage virtual datacenters
Manage virtual appliances
Manage virtual machines
Configure virtual machines

Abiquo quick tutorial