Manage VM high availability

1 Introduction to VM high availability with layers
2 Create VMs in anti-affinity layers for high availability
3 Modify a virtual appliance with anti-affinity layers

Introduction to VM high availability with layers

In private cloud, to create VMs that will always deploy on separate hypervisor hosts, use anti-affinity layers in your virtual appliance. Each VM in a layer will deploy on a different vCenter host.

Privileges: Manage virtual appliances, Manage layers

Abiquo does not support layers that intersect with other layers. For example, this means that if you have two layers, a VM in the second layer may deploy on the same physical machine as a VM in the first layer.

Ideally you should design and implement your layers before you deploy your VMs.

Anti-affinity layers can be disabled in Abiquo 6.1 by removing the Manage layers privilege, pending further development

This feature is not available in public cloud regions. Instead use the high availability solution offered by the public cloud, for example, Amazon Availability Zones, by deploying VMs with NICs in subnets in different zones, or Azure Availability Sets.

Create VMs in anti-affinity layers for high availability

See Create a VM layer

Modify a virtual appliance with anti-affinity layers

You can only make changes to layers that will not compromise anti-affinity while your VMs are deployed or running.

To change the name of a layer:

Check that all the VMs in the layer are not deployed, which means they are in the NOT_ALLOCATED state. For example, they are new in a virtual appliance that is deployed or they are in a virtual appliance that has been undeployed.
Next to the layer name, click the pencil Edit button.
Enter the new layer name

To remove a VM that is not deployed from an anti-affinity layer, drag the machine outside the layer and into the general VM area

To remove one or more deployed VMs from a layer:

Shut down the VMs
- You do not have to wait for each one to finish shutting down before moving to the next one
One by one, drag each VM out of the layer into the general VM area

To delete a layer:

Power off all the VMs
Remove all the VMs except one from the layer
Delete the layer

The layer will be deleted and the VM will be moved to the general VM area.

To move deployed VMs between layers, you must move the VM out of one layer before you move it into another. You cannot move a deployed VM directly from one layer to another.

To move a deployed VM to a different layer:

Power off the VM
Move the VM to the general VM area
If the new layer does not already exist, create the new layer
Add the VM to the new layer