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

Display VM storage

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

Open

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

Open

Attach volumes of managed 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.

Create hard disks on hypervisor datastores

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. See Manage VMs#SaveVMdiskstocreateaninstancetemplate 

To add a VM hard disk:

1. Go to myCloud → Virtual datacenters 

2. Edit a VM and go to Storage

3. Click the + add button

4. Select Assign virtual disk and complete the dialog. Some of the options may only be available to users with the required privileges

   1. The Datastore tier is the storage service level

   2. Optionally, on supported hypervisors (ESXi) and SCSI controller types

      1. For the Controller, if you already have this controller on the VM, to force the creation of a new controller of the same type, assign a new bus value. Access ESXi to confirm bus values.

      2. For the Bus, select an existing bus number or to create a new controller, specify a new bus number. The user requests a bus number but the platform will use the bus number assigned by ESXi. When there is more than one controller, to identify the controller and bus number, the platform displays the bus number as a suffix to the controller. Access ESXi to confirm bus numbers that are not displayed

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

6. To save the VM, click Save 

Add an ISO disk to install software

To add an ISO disk from the Catalogue:

1. Go to Virtual datacenters → edit a VM → Storage

2. Click the + add button

3. Choose Select an ISO disk

4. From the Catalgoue browser, 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.

Detach volumes and delete hard disks

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.

Change VM storage boot order

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.

Modify VM volumes

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

Modify the controller type and controller as required

Edit a VM volume in private cloud

Edit a VM volume in Azure

In private cloud, when a volume is attached to a VM, you can edit the Controller type and Controller. 

In public cloud, when a volume is attached to a deployed VM, you can edit the size of a volume in Azure, AWS, and GCP, and the tier in Azure and AWS. To make changes to volumes in Azure, the VM must be in the "deallocated" state. 

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

Modify VM hard disks

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

    

3. For ESXi, you can modify disks as permitted by ESXi functionality. See VMware knowledge base article. 

   • You can modify iSCSI disks on SCSI controllers or SATA disks on SATA controllers:

     • with thin provisioning only; and

     • the VM cannot have VMware snapshots.

   In private cloud, for SCSI and SATA disks, you cannot modify disk size and position at the same time.

   If you cannot modify a hard drive as expected, please contact your System Administrator.

4. Click Save on the Edit virtual disk size popup

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

VM hard disk table