Compute in datacenters

Introduction to compute in datacenters

In private cloud, the platform enables you to organize your compute resources (such as hypervisors and container servers) on virtual racks in datacenters. The compute resources are referred to as physical machines. This section describes how to manage racks and machines in private cloud datacenters.

Configure datacenters before you add hypervisors

Before you add your hypervisors to the platform, we recommend that you do the following steps.

1. Check that the installation and configuration of your hypervisors follows Abiquo instructions in the corresponding Private cloud providers documentation.

2. Optionally enter the default hypervisor connection details at Configuration → Infrastructure: Default hypervisor user, password, port

3. Optionally enter the default VLAN tag range for racks at Configuration → Infrastructure: Default minimum and maximum VLAN ID

4. Optionally enter the default private network details at Configuration → Network: Name, netmask, network address, gateway, and DNS settings

5. For hypervisor storage service levels, create datastore tiers. See Manage datastore service levels with datastore tiers

   1. When you create the tier, set the Storage allocation policy for the datastore allocation process. 

   2. You can set Allocation rules to define the percentage of each datastore that will be available for the platform to use at a datacenter or datastore tier level before you add datastores. See Allocation rules#Storageloadlevelrules. Create specific Datastore rules after you add the datastore.

6. Create network service types to tag your hypervisor network interfaces. See Manage network service types 

Create racks

See Create racks

Create racks with the API

Create servers

See Create servers

Reserve a server for an enterprise

Machines can be reserved for a specific enterprise and the enterprise's deployments can also be restricted to these reserved machines. To do this, go to Users view and edit the Enterprise tenant on the the Reservations tab.

You can also prevent enterprises from sharing servers. For more details, see Allocation rules.

Modify a server

To make changes to a physical machine do these steps.

1. Go to Infrastructure → select a datacenter → Servers view

2. In the Servers list, open a rack and select a server, then click the pencil Edit button

3. Click Check to update the state of the server in the platform

4. Make your changes and click Save

Change network interfaces on servers

• Abiquo won't discover the new NIC's of a physical machine automatically on its periodic checks. In order to detect new network interfaces you should force the NIC refresh on the hosts via an API call.

• You cannot change the network service type assigned to an interface if there are VMs deployed with virtual NICs using addresses in the network. 

• To change a network service type, first remove it from the existing interface by setting this to "Not assigned". Then assign the network service type to a different interface. 

• To disable a NIC so that it cannot be used in the platform, select "Not assigned".

• To save the physical machine, you must select at least one network interface.

Add an additional datastore

If you require more disk capacity on a hypervisor, you can add a new datastore:

1. Outside the platform, on the server and in the hypervisor, configure the disk

2. Edit the server 

3. Go to General Information and click "Check" to check the state of the machine

4. Go to Datastores. You should see the new datastore; if not, go to Datastores and click the Refresh button in the top right-hand corner 

5. Optionally edit the datastore

6. Beside the datastore, click Enabled. You must enable at least one datastore. Do not enable the NFS repository (usually /opt/vm_repository)

7. Click Save

Modify a rack

To edit a rack:

1. Go to Infrastructure → Private → select a datacenter → Servers view

2. In the Servers list, select the rack and click the pencil Edit button 

• You can change the same rack values that are used when creating racks. 

• You cannot modify the network parameters of a rack to exclude a VLAN ID from the range or as a specific exclusion if there are any VMs deployed in a network using that VLAN tag ID.

Delete a server

Notes about deleting servers:

• You cannot delete a physical machine if it contains protected VMs. See Protect a VM. 

• If you delete a machine, the allocation rules directly referring to this machine will be deleted and the VMs deployed on it by the platform will be marked as "not allocated" in the platform.  

  • If you add the same machine again, then the VMs will be registered and marked as managed by the platform and their state will be updated to reflect any changes in the hypervisor.

  • You cannot redeploy captured VMs in the "not allocated" state unless you recreate them from an instance template.

• If you add the physical machine again, the platform will update all the VMs from the hypervisor, including captured VMs

Delete a rack

To delete a rack:

1. Select the rack in the Servers list

2. Click the trash bin Delete button at the bottom of the Servers list

You cannot delete a rack with VMs deployed on its machines.

Pages related to racks and physical machines

• The Abiquo infrastructure guide describes how to configure your infrastructure before you work with the platform

• Main page for Infrastructure view with links to other sections

• Import and capture virtual machines

• For previous steps, see the links at the top of this page

• Next steps: 

  • Give tenants access to datacenters: Manage enterprises#Allowatenanttoaccessdatacentersandcloudproviders and Configure an enterprise in a cloud location