Import and capture virtual machines

1 Prepare to capture VMs
2 Retrieve VMs from a physical machine
3 Capture a VM
4 Remove unmanaged VMs
5 Release captured VMs
6 Recover captured VMs
7 How to configure Abiquo to import and capture VMs with volumes

This document describes how to onboard VMs that were created outside the hybrid cloud platform in private cloud hypervisors.

For an explanation of life cycle of VM import (retrieval) and capture, see About import and capture virtual machines
For full details of what Abiquo will import and capture in private cloud, see What Abiquo imports and captures for VMs
For public cloud, see Onboard from public cloud

For private cloud, you can import or retrieve your existing VMs into the platform so the platform will count them as resources used on the hypervisors. Then you can select VMs to capture, so the platform will manage them fully and in the same way as native VMs.

After you capture VMs, you can release them so that the platform will not manage them, but this will not undo any changes that you made in the platform.

Undeploy destroys the captured VM on the hypervisor
When you undeploy a captured VM, this will destroy the VM on the hypervisor. To be able to redeploy (recreate) the VM, before you undeploy it, create an instance to copy the VM disks as a template in the Catalogue. You can then create a new VM from the instance template, which you can undeploy and deploy again.

Prepare to capture VMs

Before you capture a VM

To add a new extra charge to a VM you will capture, before you capture the VM, create the extra charge in Pricing view
Obtain the details of the networks that the VM belongs to (VLAN tag, network address, netmask), and the IP address(es) of the VM
Identify or create these networks and IPs in Abiquo, unless the VM is in a default private network that Abiquo will manage.

An external network with IP addresses for captured VMs
You will need to add the captured VM to a virtual datacenter (VDC), so if necessary, create a VDC. In order to do this, you will need to have already added a hypervisor of the same type as the one you are capturing from.
1. If the VM uses a public IP, purchase the appropriate public IP for the virtual datacenter
  1. Go to myCloud → Virtual datacenters
  2. Select a virtual datacenter
  3. Go to Network → Public and click the + add button

Retrieve VMs from a physical machine

To retrieve or import VMs from a physical machine:

Go to Infrastructure → Private → Servers
For a new physical machine, add the physical machine and to automatically import VMs, select the Retrieve existing virtual machines checkbox
For an existing physical machine, select the physical machine, and click the Retrieve virtual machines button.

Retrieve VMs from a hypervisor in the platform

The imported VMs will appear in the list with the imported symbol. If duplicate VMs display, you may have clicked the retrieve button while an import process was already running. To remove duplicates, click the Remove unmanaged virtual machines button and then retrieve the VMs again.

Capture a VM

To onboard a VM that you already imported into the platform:

Go to Infrastructure → Private
Select a datacenter
Go to Servers and select a physical machine
Select the VM and on the VM details panel, click the Capture VM button
The Capture virtual machine dialog will open, listing all the compatible virtual appliances. Select the virtual appliance in the virtual datacenter with the network address, or create a new virtual appliance by clicking the + add button.
Click Accept to capture the VM
Review the General Information of the captured VM
- Optionally, change the VM Name and add an Icon
- On vCenter, configure WebMKS to allow remote access on captured VMs.
Configure and assign the corresponding network and IP configuration to each NIC. Select a Default gateway.
Review hard disks that Abiquo will capture.
After reviewing the VM configuration, click Accept to continue. The platform will now capture the VM

If metrics are activated on the platform, the platform will activate the fetch of metrics for the VM. The user can then edit the VM to select the metrics to display in the UI.

The platform will store the timestamps of when the VM was created and when it was captured into the platform. It will display these time stamps on the VM details panel.

The platform will fully manage the captured VM.

The captured VM will have the Release VM button on its VM details panel.

If the virtual appliance was deployed before the capture, the new VM will be added to the virtual appliance but no other changes will be made. If the virtual appliance was undeployed (and contained VMs) before the capture, afterwards it will be deployed and in the Partially deployed state.

Undeploy destroys the captured virtual machine on the hypervisor

When you undeploy a captured VM, this will destroy the VM on the hypervisor. If you would like to be able to redeploy it, before you undeploy, create an instance to copy the VM disks as a template in the Catalogue. You can then create a new VM from the instance template

Remove unmanaged VMs

You can remove the unmanaged VMs on a physical machine from the platform.

To remove unmanaged VMs:

Go to Infrastructure → Private
Select a datacenter
Go to the Servers section
Select a physical machine
On the physical machine control panel, click the Remove unmanaged virtual machines button.

The imported VMs will no longer be displayed on the screen and the platform will no longer include them in physical machine data. Remember you can retrieve them again at any time.

Release captured VMs

You can release captured VMs so that Abiquo does not manage them. The platform does not make any changes to VMs when it releases them. It is only possible to release a captured VM that is deployed.

To release a captured VM:

Go to Infrastructure → Private
Select a datacenter and go to Servers
Select a physical machine and select the VM
Or go to Infrastructure → Virtual machines and select the VM
On the VM control panel, click the Release button.

Any changes made to the VM in Abiquo will remain. For example, users may have reconfigured the VM to add a hard disk, and they will still be able to use the hard disk.

When you release a captured VM in private cloud and a network virtualization system is in use:

The platform will remove the association with the VM from the firewalls and load balancers in the platform
Firewalls and load balancers will remain in the platform
In the network virtualization system, the firewalls and load balancers will still be associated with the VM
If you decide to capture the VM again, you should add it to the same virtual datacenter

Recover captured VMs

When you delete a physical machine, the platform will put all VMs in the Not allocated state, without changing the VMs on the hypervisor. You cannot deploy the captured VMs again in the platform unless you recreate them from an instance template.

If you later add the physical machine again or upgrade to cluster as physical machine, the platform will automatically update all VMs from the hypervisor, returning captured VMs to a deployed state. In the API these recovered VMs will have the same ID and URL as before.

How to configure Abiquo to import and capture VMs with volumes

For ESXi, to import VMs with disks that are located on external volumes, set the abiquo.experimental.capturewithvolumes.bypass property on the Abiquo Server
For ESXi, to capture VMs with volumes (except in position 0 in the disk sequence), set the abiquo.experimental.capturewithvolumes.bypass property on the Abiquo Server
- The platform can capture the VMs but it does not register the external storage volumes as VM resources
- After you capture the VMs, you can add the volumes to the platform as Generic iSCSI volumes
- If you do not add the volumes as Generic iSCSI volumes and you wish to add more external volumes, in order to prevent issues with the unregistered volumes, add volumes to a new SCSI controller of a different type