About import and capture virtual machines

This document describes how to onboard (capture) VMs that were created outside the hybrid cloud platform. From private cloud, you can first retrieve your existing VMs into the platform. When you capture VMs, the platform will manage them fully and they are the same as native VMs.

For import and capture of VMs in public cloud, see Onboard from public cloud

Introduction to import and capture VMs

In a private cloud datacenter, when you a hypervisor or cluster to Abiquo, it may already have VMs running on it, and you can import (retrieve) and capture these VMs.

Privileges: Manage infrastructure elements

When you import (also called retrieve) VMs, you register them in Abiquo but Abiquo does not manage them. The platform will take into account the resources they use when scheduling and allocating resources, and track their state as part of the virtual infrastructure check. The platform will also include them to improve the accuracy of resource usage statistics.

You can then capture (also called onboard) retrieved VMs so they will be managed by the platform. When you capture a VM it is almost identical to a VM created in Abiquo. The main difference is that when you capture a VM, Abiquo does not have a copy of the template disks in the Catalogue. This means that you cannot automatically create a fresh copy of the VM with the same configuration and the template disks, by undeploying the VM and deploying it again to copy the template from the Catalogue. When you capture a VM, to store the disks in the Catalogue, you can create an Abiquo instance template, which you can then use to create a fresh copy of the VM.

Importing, capturing, releasing and removing VMs from the platform does not change them in the infrastructure; these operations only determine which operations the platform can perform on them.

This diagram shows steps to import and capture VMs that were created outside of Abiquo.

Retrieve and capture VMs

Import and capture of individual VMs is only available in private cloud.

For details of what Abiquo onboards, see What Abiquo imports and captures for VMs
For details of how to capture VMs, see About import and capture virtual machines

To capture resources from public cloud regions, onboard them as part of regions or virtual datacenters. See Onboard from public cloud.